TRANSCRIPT: EP - 5 - Jesi Wants The Seed

Michael: Hello BYOB nation. Michael here. I can't make it to the BYOB Pen Club tonight, but the rest of the gang, minus Ralph, plus two very special guests, are here to serenade you with their dulcet tones and stationery tales. Before the show starts I want to take a moment to thank all of our Patrons for supporting us on the BYOB Pen Club Patreon. You can check it out at patreon.com/byobpenclub, where you can also choose your side: Team Cake, or Team Pie. That's patreon.com/byobpenclub. Now on to the show.

[intro music]

Yvgenii: Hello and welcome to episode 5 of the BYOB Pen Club. Come in from the storm and join us as we lean a little left and talk about what it's like writing in a right-hand world. And then a little later, we're going to have some inky thoughts. Not icky, inky. But before that, let's go around the horn and talk about what we're writing with tonight. First, let's go ahead and talk to Jim, our foreign correspondent out in Lebanon.

Jim: Hey guy. So it's like 3:30 in the morning right now. I don't know I'm not really writing with anything right now, but if I'm going to pull out the first pen that I was using for a while it's my Omas Paragon in scarlet celluloid that I got used off like a sale on Facebook, and it's inked with Kyo-Iro Higashiyama Moonlight, which is a really interesting brown.

Yvgenii: Now we're definitely going to have to look that up. I have yet to try a really interesting brown ink.

Jesi: Haven't you tried Rikyu-cha?

Sarah: Ralphyu-cha.

Yvgenii: No I have not tried Ralph's ink of joy yet.

[laughter]

Jim: We have an interesting brown ink to bring up later.

Yvgenii: Oh we do? OK cool well we'll save it for then. What about you Sandra?

Sandra: Well, I've actually got six pens sitting out on my notebook right now. We I inked up a whole bunch of pens this past weekend for pen club, and but for tonight I'm really going to be writing with two of them. One is the new Pelikan 605 transparent white, which I have inked up with Diamine Earl Grey. And I also have a Brooks custom acrylic pen - it's an Aiken model - that I had him make with it's like a red and black swirl and it is filled with Akkerman Dutch Masters #7, Rembrandt, uh I can't pronounce the other word, because it goes really well with the red and black acrylic of the pen.

Yvgenii: Are you like the type of person that tries to match the ink no matter what, or how's that work?

Sandra: No normally there's always one pen that I try and match the ink up to the pen, but other than that it's I more match the ink to the nib. If it's a cursive italic I want something that shades, if it's a little bit broader I want something that's going to show off a little bit of sheen or some shimmer in it, I kinda go that route.

Jim: So you have a system, that's good.

Sandra: That and when all else fails it's, "Oh crap I just used up all that ink that pen, I need to find something!" And just grab whatever I can find.

Yvgenii: The panic method. Totally, totally totally perfect. What do you have Claire?

Claire: Alright I've got two pens on top of my notebook. One is the Sailor Pro Gear Kingfisher, and the other is a US Fountain Pens Victor. And I'm actually going to post a link to the the patent for the Victor because that'll give you a better idea of what the pen is.

Yvgenii: I was about to say the second you said that name I was like, OK...? Smile and nod, smile and nod.

Sandra: Yeah I was like now that, that is kind of funny, to say it at the same time.

Yvgenii: Especially with the latency, how did you pull that off?

Sarah: *I don't know noise*

Sandra: Same brain. Same brain every once in a while.

Yvgenii: Note to self do not say big words after a long day at work.

Sarah: That's a common affliction.

Yvgenii: It really is.

Phil: How many pages of notes to self have you done since you started this podcast?

Yvgenii: Um....

Sarah: Do you have like a special notebook dedicated to it?

Yvgenii: I do I have a Rhodia Goalbook, in gold. Note to self GOAL book - that's on page 7.

Sandra: Ennunciation.

Yvgenii: Mmhm. Page 7, and I use commas, each one does not get its own line, it's like Note to Self, comma, Note to Self on the same line, keep going.

Oscar: Oh you're evil.

Yvgenii: I am.

Oscar: I couldn't do that.

Yvgenii: So, back to the writing, hey Sarah what are you writing with tonight?

Sarah: Um... I'm on the pencil train tonight. I've got a Blackwing Volumes 530, that's the gold one with the extra firm core, and I've got just a regular Blackwing 602. There was a shop that had Blackwing 602s on sale for like $11 a box, so that's half off, on Cyber Monday, and so I ordered two boxes, and some other stuff, and those got here yesterday, because snow delay because it snowed in Atlanta on Friday, which caused everyone to lose their minds, so you know...

Yvgenii: Jesi what are you writing with?

[laughter]

Jesi: Well I have a couple of pens. I've got a Sailor Pro Gear Slim that's the purple cosmos. And it is inked up with Faber Castell Violet Blue. And then I have a Platinum 3776 Lavande. It has Organic Studios is it vanandum? Vanadum?

Jim: Vanadium maybe?

Yvgenii: When we're done recording tonight, I need to hop on Slack and like immediately message Braden over at Pen Chalet and have him start building me an ink box.

[laughter]

Yvgenii: It's like Braden, care package. Surprise me. So what are you writing with Phil?

Phil: Tonight I'm using my Lamy 2000, which I'm really tempted to move because it's a fine nib, and I want something fatter, much much fatter.

Yvgenii: If you decide to sell it, I'll give you my email address.

Phil: We might have a deal then. And it's inked up with Oscar's favorite drinking ink, Scriptus 150 Confederation Brown.

[laughter]

Yvgenii: I need to get in on the Scriptus train.

Oscar: I sold my bottle. It's a nice ink but it just wasn't for me.

Yvgenii: Actually are you still doing that ink thing, Oscar?

Oscar: For the Montblanc samples?

Yvgenii: Well, I went to go fill out the form and then I got sidetracked.

Oscar: Um, yeah just message me afterwords. I've got a few inks left.

Yvgenii: OK sounds good, uh we'll talk about that after the episode. Speaking of which, what are you writing with?

Oscar: I have two pens out. I have my Omas Ogiva Alba, with reconstituted orange is what I'm calling it, because it kind of dried up with, I still don't know what ink it is inside of it. I think it's KWZ orange or grapefruit.

Jim: You should post that gnarly picture.

Oscar: I can put it in the show notes.

Jesi: Oscar that's um neglected nibbage.

[laughter]

Sandra: How long was that ink in the pen?

Oscar: It was only in there for like a week and a half! I put it in there before my finals exams, and then I didn't use it because everyone required pencil, for an exam.

Yvgenii: What type of environment did you store the pen in?

Oscar: I just kept it in my Franklin-Christoph penvalope, and I carried it with me in my bag everywhere. So it wasn't like it was nib-down or anything, it was nib up.

Phil: What ink was it?

Oscar: I think it was KWZ orange.

Sandra: And what pen is that?

Phil: I haven't used that one, but I know a lot of oranges do do that, especially if they're on the drier side.

Oscar: Yeah...

Phil: Montblanc Lucky Orange will do it, especially if you leave it for a bit.

Oscar: And then I also have my Montblanc 221 with Montblanc Psychedelic Purple. I just put it in like two days ago I love this color.

Phil: We're gonna discuss that ink.

Yvgenii: Yeah we've got a good discussion on that one later on. It's in the notes. Speaking of which, I guess that means me. I am using my new Pelikan M400, the red and black, with the Monteverde Mercury Noir, and pretty much I'm cycling through six pens. That's the one I was doing for the intro, now for the topics I think I'm going to switch over to my Pilot Falcon with the other ink that I can't remember what I put in it, so that'll be a surprise.

Sandra: Do you normally match your ink to your pen?

Yvgenii: OK so for the Pelikan, the Conlkin, the 3952, and the Platinum yes the inks are all matched, well even for the TWSBI yeah the ink is matched for that one. If it's if it's a jet-black pen that's where I do fair game, I think that's where I toss all of my extra craziness.

Sandra: That's the one nice thing about a black pen or a full clear demonstrater - it goes with every ink.

Yvgenii: Exactly.

Sarah: I favor black and white pens, black pens, well not really black pens, but black and white pens, demos, because you can put whatever you want in there and it works.

Yvgenii: See I want to get my hands on a on a stormtrooper at some point just to say yay I've joined the stormtrooper club!

Jim: Stormtrooper Pelikan or VP though?

Sarah: I'm going to hoard a bazillion of those stortrooper Blackwings if you want some of those.

Phil: The stormtrooper Pelikan is like a smaller one it's like a 101 so it's smaller than your 400.

Yvgenii: So I'm just trying to figure out which one would go well with me. I think there's actually something I'd rather like to hear about. So we've got, what, two lefties as hosts tonight? I can't do anything left handed, and with ink involve I'm afraid to. How the hell do you guys do it?

Oscar: Honestly I'm a little weird. I think I'm ambidextrous because I write with my left hand and then I do guitar with my left hand, but everything else I do like a normal righty would. I don't know I think it's just society pressuring me to be right handy and I just kinda went that way. I dunno what about you Sandra?

Sandra: I've always been the oddball in my family which is why I'm the only lefty. Luckily my parents never tried to make me right-handed. My teachers never tried to make me right-handed. And after talking to people at pen shows, apparently I'm one of the few people that had a teacher that encouraged me and helped me so that I wouldn't end up, you know, as the hook over-writers as a lefty. She came over and showed me how to change and sit in a right-handed desk and still be able to maneuver and write.

Oscar: I should have gone to school where you did.

Sandra: The wonders of Texas public education.

Oscar: I got Virginia public education.

Jim: In my case, I'm not lefty but like my uncle, my mom's older brother actually is. When he was in school especially with the culture here, with like the left hand at least in like Arab culture has this like very weird thing. It's its' uh you're not supposed to eat with your left hand because that's used for other things, but basically like because he was left handed he was in school a lot of his teachers would like slap him with a ruler so they forced him to write with his right hand. And now he can write with either hand but his handwriting is terrible with both hands.

Yvgenii: I grew up in Turkey for about four years between the ages of three and seven so that's when I'm just learning how to write it's when I'm getting started, and the grip because the air force base we lived on had Turkish teachers and the way they had me learn the grip and everything was just weird. It took a good I'm still trying to correct it. I'm 32 years old and I'm still trying to correct my grip.

Sandra: But what was so weird about the grip?

Yvgenii: Uh OK yeah one second I'll take a picture of it. Keep talking while I do though.

Sandra: So Oscar a question for you. Being a left-handed person and going to pen shows and trying out everyone else's pens, have you run into any any problems with using other people's nibs? Like for me, every architect nib that I ever tried felt absolutely horrible to me until I got it custom ground for me.

Oscar: You know I I don't have a problem with any nib, except cursive italics and that's just cuz I rotate the nib a little bit when I write. I actually have a Lamy Dialog 3 that's an extra fine architect and I love that thing. My favorite story is that I blew away Mike Matteson, Inkdependence, by having a left oblique nib. Apparently that's supposed to be for right-handed people and left-handed people aren't supposed to be able to use it. I showed him that I could use it perfectly.

Sarah: I don't know I feel like the angle at which you hold your pen is going to be more important than lefty or righty.

Oscar: Well I do overwriting, well I'm a natural over-writer that went to under-writer, and I never do side-writing because of the things that that comes with that are not good. But yeah most of the time now I do under-writing. You're an under-writer too right?

Sandra: I'm a I'm an under-writer. Occasionally I get a little closer to a side, but I'm 99% of the time an under-writer. But if you if you used to be a hook over-writer, I could actually see how you could use an oblique nib that was designed for a right-handed person because you're almost hooking and point the pen in the same direction as somebody who's right-handed.

Oscar: Usually I just kind of rotate my grip or the way I hold it. Do you do any pointed pen or any calligraphy by chance?

Sandra: That is the one thing that I have not been able to get working correctly. And I think it is because of my grip and where I hold the pen I just can't seem to angle properly. Like you and I were talking earlier on Slack and I can’t I can't even get slanting to my letters. They're almost all straight up and down even when I write in cursive because of how I hold the pen to the page.

Oscar: You know I have that issue too and I do underwriting and you saw how I write. When I do overhand I have a natural slant, but I kindof tried to work against that when I do when I do pen calligraphy or try to I use John Nicalas's [sp] method of using just a normal right oblique nib holder and angling the paper. I still haven't quite mastered that, it's very odd for me to try to imagine letters at a 90-degree angle. I don't know. If we ever meet up at a show I'll let you use my stuff and try it out. Maybe you'll fair better than I do with it.

Sandra: I would love to because watching like Nik Pang at the Triangle show and watching him write out my name for me and everything I I've and watching Michael Sull and others at the Dallas show and a few others I'm just totally fascinated by their work and how they do everything and yeah... I tried to hold it and like this I'm I'm gonna break the nib so I just put the stuff down and walked away.

Claire: So um first time I met Nik Pang, he um started poking at how my hand was writing, trying to fix how I held the pen.

Jim: So um I wanted to ask so beyond just the grip I guess another problem with uh lefties is the ink smearing so uh I've experienced it because when I'd write Arabic right to left I'd smear a ton with like my right hand so I had to like figure out ways to like avoid smearing when I wrote in pencil or ink in school when I wrote in Arabic. I didn't have that problem in English or French, but like like how do you guys deal with it?

Sandra: As an, as an under-writer yeah as an under-writer I don't have that problem because my hand is is I'm looking at it right now I'll take a picture in just a second my hand is about 1, 2, 3... is about six lines lower than where the nib is actually touching the page, so I am completely underneath my writing so my hand will never touch the ink.

Oscar: I used to do over, and when I was younger I side-wrote until I got tired of, like I still call it silver surfer syndrome, I think a lot of lefties call it that, where you have graphite all over the side of your hand.

Yvgenii: When when you posted that the other day i chat I was like wait, did he have an accident with a spray-paint bottle?

Sarah: Like I've had that happen to me but like drawing, because I'm a write handed person but when you draw you're all over the place and my hand's just like covered in lead or graphite but writing oh god.

Jim: Yo that picture looks like dragonscale from Game of Thrones.

[laughter]

Sarah: Maybe that's how the prop people did it.

Yvgenii Getting to actually listen to you guys talk oh my goodness that is a huge pen. What is that I want it.

Oscar: What are you using?

Sandra: That is a Jonathan Brooks Aiken pen, and it's one that I commissioned at the Triangle Pen Show and it's actually it's a little hard to see in that picture but it's actually a it's dark red and black swirls and on the the roll stop is actually a NC state earing that I sent to him. So it was because I graduate from NC State University, so I had the pen made kinda to remind myself of my time at NC State.

Oscar: Oh I remember you posted a picture of this pen on the Pen Addict Slack. This thing is beautiful.

Sandra: I love this pen, and from afar because the colors are not as bright as he normally makes some of his acrylics they're a lot darker, it fooled Shawn Newton and he thought it was actually an urushi pen.

[laughter]

Jesi: Wow.

Jim: Nice.

Sandra: Yeah, um.

Jim: How big is it, but the way?

Sandra: What how big is the pen?

Yvgenii: Yeah how big is that pen?

Sandra: About the same size as a Franklin-Christoph 31.

Sarah: You just have small hands.

Sandra: It looks big because I do I have small hands.

Phil: We should do a hand comparison later.

Oscar: We can put our hands on A5 notebooks again?

Yvgenii: I mean we have to have a hand comparison later? No.

Claire: I think Franz has a picture of my hand in comparison to an A5 notebook somewhere.

Sarah: Yeah I feel like there is a stock of...

Jim: Yeah we definitely did that in the Pen Addict Slack at one point.

Sandra: Yes I remember doing that it was a I believe it was a cold day because I remember being curled on my couch with my blanket.

Yvgenii: Just because I want to see whether we can start rumors off of this um Oscar's got to put the kids to bed here really quick but he wanted to cover a rather interesting thing that happened recently but Oscar why don't you tell us what happened?

Oscar: I organized a group buy in the Pen Addict Slack for some Montblanc ink samples for the limited edition ones this year. I went in there and you know I ordered their new Psychedelic Purple and a couple of other colors, and I didn't know it at the time but I called them back later because I was curious when they would get it in and they said we have this ink in the store, we just won't sell it to you because you didn't buy the Beatles pen, we can't sell you the ink that we have in store without the pen you have to wait for your order to come in. And even then it's not guaranteed that you're going to get it. Apparently that's not uncommon in some stores like that, but it just kinda rubs me the wrong way, cuz I went I think 20 minutes out of my way up to Fajrney’s in DC and they were awesome. They gave me the bottles of ink that I needed and they were like that's ridiculous you don't need to buy a pen to get the ink. We understand that some people just like the inks and they can't you know they either can't afford the pens or the pens don't catch their attention.

Yvgenii: How much was the pen they were saying you had to buy?

Oscar: The Beatles pen?

Yvgenii: Yeah.

Oscar: Honestly I don't know, I would think upwards of $600 though.

Jim: Some of the Montblanc stores here in Beirut do that too. They don't necessarily say it buy the LE version you can just buy any Montblanc pen and get ink with it. So you can buy like one of the "cheapo" ballpoints that are still like $200.

Oscar: Yeah looking on Appelboom it's $870.

Claire: Well so so can you buy the pen, buy the ink, and then return the pen?

Oscar: I was already upset and apparently when I called their corporate office trying to see if they could help me out they said sorry we can't control the boutiques or what they do. They set their own prices and their own rules for sales like that.

Sarah: Huh I wonder if it's if they're franchised?

Oscar: I don't know.

Sarah: Or like and like everyone there works on commission or something? Because that would kind of explain the weird treatment you got.

Jim: Montblanc is weird like that. I mean think about it this way they don't even get the limited edition inks their own boutiques first they actually send them to retailers before that.

Sarah: That's real weird.

Claire: The boutiques don't get much.

Oscar: I don't know.

Claire: In terms of ink at least.

Sarah: Maybe they know like the boutiques are the people coming in for like cuz they're like oh Montblanc this is fancy and they know they're coming in for the same versus like people that are like going to a like local pen store or whatever are actually like interested in the pens.

Phil: The way you said that Sarah, this is fancy.

[laughter]

Sarah: I blame the brandy that I'm putting in my tea.

Yvgenii: Ah so you went with brandy.

Sarah: I did have like the citron honey tea that's Korean, I was putting vodka in that. But then I moved on to like a spiced, it's like an orange and spiced - it tastes like Christmas basically. And so I'm putting brandy in that.

Phil: So Oscar now that you have this Psychedelic Purple ink, how does it compare to Lamy Dark Lilac? Cuz that's the question.

Oscar: I think it's a lot more vibrant than Dark Lilac. I've only used my Dark Lilac once because I only had one cartridge of it. I dunno this is a lot more vibrant it's kind of I'd say it's a lot more neon, but I can still see some sheen like on the edges of it on Tomoe River paper and my Maruman Mnemosyne paper.

Sarah: I wonder how it compares to Cross Violet then, because what I've seen with Cross Violet is that it does also look a lot more like neon and bright than Dark Lilac.

Jesi: Oh that's a good one and that actually does have a good amount of sheen with it.

Jim: It's a bit less saturated but it still has sheen somehow.

Yvgenii: I've not tried either of the inks involved so I'm just sitting here going - and distracted by a picture.

[laughter]

Phil: Squirrel!

[laughter]

Jesi: Any purple ink I just have to try.

Jim: I'm just bummed by like the expensive price on the new Montblanc inks. I mean if it was like $30-$35 I'd maybe like think about it it's a nice enough color but now it's like $41 or $43.

Phil: $43 yeah.

Sarah: I think what everyone was saying like oh Montblanc pens are ridiculous but Montblanc inks are reasonably priced, that got back up to corporate and they're like NO. It all has to be ridiculous.

Jim: It's like Sailor right? They're like oh our inks our too cheap.

Sarah: Yes.

Oscar: Honestly looking at these pictures that Sandra's posting, I think Johnathan Brooks is the acrylic master.

Sarah: I thought we already established this.

Claire: Yeah.

Jim: We've called him the acrylic wizard.

Claire: Magician.

Sarah: Something along those lines.

Yvgenii: Who's this we you speak of.

Sarah: Wait I remember writing this in the transcript I can look it up.

Yvgenii: [sigh] Great...

[laughter]

Yvgenii: You know the sad thing about writing stuff and certain things? We are doing a horrible job keeping track of our show notes.

Phil: Hey I wrote some shit down.

Yvgenii: I know I appreciate that. I think we're squirreling enough you know what we ought to talk about? Hunting down some Japanese exclusive products.

Sandra: Cuz I would like to know how to do this, because I fail miserably.

Sarah: Teach us your ways, Claire.

Yvgenii: Yes.

Claire: I have spent an inordinate amount of time scouring Twitter finding some of the pens I find. I mean I haven't purchased a pen from Japan in probably a good six months now, but um, it's still kind of just fun to hunt them down. So usually it it kinda just started by me finding random fountain pen enthusiasts on Twitter to follow and just kept following more people that they followed and it went from there.

Sarah: So if you're not buying them can we hire you?

Claire: I don't have time anymore.

Sarah: Oooooh.

Claire: So I spent um eleven months off of work because of I had a couple of surgeries, so um I had more time than I knew what to do with so, what else am I going to do with it?

Sarah: Put it all into hunting down Japanese pens. There you go makes perfect sense.

Claire: Yeah I mean that's why I have that demo um Sailor Realo and that's why I have the Kingfisher Tami found and then Katherine gave me a link.

Jim: Got some pics of those pens you want to share with the audience?

Claire: OK.

Jim: I mean I've seen them but it's for other you know. So the websites you tend to go to it's like Rakuten and like like yahoo.jp and like amazon.jp?

Claire: Yahoo.jp is what I generally it's probably the best bet in terms of one site that finds the that you'll be able to find the most random stuff. But um like Kingdom Note is also a good place because they also get consignment as well so you can sometimes find some older LEs that are no longer available like that's how um Franz got his I forgot what pen I'm thinking of um but it's a Sailor Pro Gear it's go a black cap and then a silver body, Franz might be able to remind me of what exactly that pen is called. This is then you just kinda have to go through Zen Market or White Rabbit or something like that to actually purchase the pen.

Sarah: What are those?

Claire: So um a lot of times you can't purchase a pen directly from a retailer directly from Japan because they don't want to deal with shipping and customs and all that so um there's other companies like I've always just used Zen Market because they're the cheapest, and they're reach averse [?]. Zen Market is the one I can speak to the best and what they do is you submit a link to Zen Market, they then go double check with the retailer to make sure it's still available. Then you pay for the item, they buy the item, it gets shipped to their warehouse, and then you can also combine other items together to combine shipping to the United States, because shipping's not cheap, and then you decide what decide what items are going to go in one box, they ship it together or they pack it together, they weigh it, they charge you for shipping, then it gets shipped to the United States.

Jim: Some of them can even go to like physical retail stores right? I forgot if Zen Market or White Rabbit that does that?

Jim: Because like so like you can't get stuff from Mauruzen unless if you go there in person but I think one of the services, I'm not sure which one I think White Rabbit, can go physically to a store and buy stuff. It obviously costs more because you know, it takes more effort.

Claire: See I got my Mauruzen inks from just mules or people I know who've just been to Japan so not something I've ever really bothered with, so it's also helpful to have friends who are traveling to Japan.

Jim: Yeah the SF posse has a bunch of those huh?

Claire: Yeah the SF posse is wonderful. As someone who frequents the SF posse I am very very lucky.

Sandra: Now Claire a question. Have you ever had problems with your credit card getting declined after these things go through? Like I was trying to use Rakuten, and it said everything went through and I had so many problems and it got flagged and no matter how many times I told my credit card company it's OK allow it it never worked and I missed out on a couple of pretty pens.

Claire: So um I've always just used PayPal. And generally you do better if you fund your PayPal account in yen it just is in term of how much money you actually spend. So I've always just used PayPal and PayPal doesn't seem to mind my spending money in Japan.

Yvgenii: Sorry about that I was writing all the notes on what to do to purchase from out of country.

Sarah: You're going to listen to this like five times when editing it.

Sandra: Yvgenii you were ogling at a nib.

[laughter]

Sarah: Yes that's more accurate you were like how do I buy that nib from you?

Yvgenii: Nibs... pens...

Jim: Wait Alex's Trident nib?

Sarah: Yes.

Sandra: Yes.

Yvgenii: Yes...

Sandra: Alex has been teasing him, and prodding him with pictures.

Jim: We've got him on the show next week, right?

Yvgenii: Oh god we do. Wait he's going to be on the show without Ralph.

Sarah: He can come back on again.

Jim: It's just gonna be like less hype but I mean I think Alex can do some hype on his own.

Sarah: It's gonna be nuts.

Phil: You know what disappoints me most about this nib though? I'm down the highway from Alex and he still has not sent a Trident for me to play with.

Sarah: Or wait now this is good because Phil already has the A5 Seed, so he doesn't need more preview stuff.

Yvgenii: You know before we take some questions, both from the audience and from our giant pile of show notes, I actually want to, well we can actually get two more in. There's something here staring me in the face about the SBRE Brown ink?

Jim: I think Phil's getting his own sample?

Sarah: Wait Phil do you have a sample of that too?

Phil: I have a sample of the original one. And so yeah so that was just me grabbing my swab card so I can actually take a picture of it.

Sarah: Wait origin - I'm very confused, there was an original one?

Phil: So this originally came out like two years ago something? And it was super popular, it came in a little 30mL bottle. Um it sold out really quick.

Jim: He was selling it through Fonto Plumo or maybe Appelboom? It was one of the dutch sellers.

Phil: And everybody really, really liked it. And they were disappointed it was a limited release. So they released a YouTube video, Monday? That it's coming back and it's coming back the exact same formula, because it's still made by Diamine. And it's coming back in the new 120mL Dutch Master bottles.

Sarah: That's why people were saying this confirms that Diamine makes Akkerman inks.

Jim: It's still not enough of a confirmation because technically he's getting the bottles from Akkerman and sending them to Diamine. But I mean there's a lot of smoke, and that usually means there's fire.

Phil: That's probably what Akkerman does anyways is takes the bottles and sends them to Diamine.

Sarah: And honestly like, I buy Akkerman inks not for the, well for the ink but mainly for the bottle, because-

Phil: Yeah. That was my original thinking to.

Sarah: -because those bottles are awesome. I think that's everyone's reasoning for buying Akkerman inks, because the bottles are awesome. Cuz everyone knows you can get the equivalent color for cheaper.

Phil: The swap is up in the audience compared to toffee brown.

Jim: I was going to say like the colors themselves aren't like 100% identical to like other stuff in the lineup from Diamine.

Sarah: But it's close enough.

Jim: Yeah Shocking Blue and Majestic Blue are really close but then like others aren't like as close. Like someone tried to compare the light green one, 28? I'm not going to spell the name.

Sarah: No I own the light green one, and at the Pelikan Hub this year I was there when someone else, like I had it inked up and someone else was there and they had I think Diamine Meadow? And I'm looking at it in my notebook right now it's almost identical. I think that people were just pegging the wrong ink as the identical ink.

Jesi: I think that they write differently. The uh Akkerman and Diamine write differently from each other.

Sarah: Interesting.

Phil: So now I'm trying to pull out all my browns in my swab cards.

Jim: There's like Nick Stewart from like the Quink & Bleach blog? He tested them and at least when you break them down with bleach they break down the same way, some of them, so I'd say at least in terms of dye it's very possible they're the same but maybe Akkerman adds a few extras? Possible.

Sarah: Yeah no I'm looking at what you posted of the ink Phil and I don't know it looks nice but.

Phil: I have not used my sample yet, and I got it shortly after it, shortly after it was discontinued the first time - a close pen friend gave it to me - and I haven't used it because I mean it's kindof a yellow orange brown it's not really what I'm looking for in a brown.

Sarah: I was going to say it looks a lot like uh KWZ Honey or um it actually looks a lot like um Private Reserve Shoreline Gold.

Jim: It reminds me of Akkerman 22, which I quite like but I mean.

Phil: I don't have 22 but I have 23 so hold on I'll get you another picture.

Jim: 23 is the dark one. 22 is like a lighter brown. Here let me get the Vanness page. Actually no I mean Vanness's swatches I remember aren't that uh there's something weird about the way they do swatches.

Sarah: Like they their writing samples like like how they when they write the name of the ink underneath the swatch, that I find is a good representation at least for how I write, but everything else is like eugh.

Phil: There's a whole pile of browns.

Jim: Ana has a review of it.

Sarah: OK so it is more orange than Honey. That's... weird.

Yvgenii: When it comes to like swatches for at least more the mainstream inks, JetPens really does it the best. I don't know what they do but the colors are actually like, accurate.

Jim: Uh I'd say Anderson does a good job too.

Yvgenii: I haven't floated around Anderson's much, um, I feel the urge to.

Jim: I recently ordered one of the limited Kyoto TAG inks, the Adzukiiro, I got it off of Anderson's along with some Graphilo paper because some, I think uh Michael last time mentioned it and it's like oh yeah I wanted to try that so.

Yvgenii: Yeah that was Michael.

Sarah: I don't know my theory about swatching is that you know people can like write with the same ink and the same pen and it looks slightly differently just cuz people write differently? It's the same with swatching, so some people are going to have swatching that more reflect how it's going to look for you, and some people have swatches that reflect how it's going to look for another person, so, like again at that Pelikan hub, a bunch of us compared Col-o-rings, and we would have swabs of the same ink, and they would look different on the swatches but they would all be accurate to how they looked to us when we used them.

Claire: Well and also um and some inks also change color with how long they've been on the paper like.

Sarah: That's very true.

Claire: Like I have a swab that's from Waterman Mysterious Blue that looks way different than what it looks like when you put it down right away.

Sarah: I think that might be a Waterman thing though, because I have Waterman Florida Blue, I don't know what they changed that name to.

Phil: That was the turquoise right?

Sarah: No it's uh it's their lighter it looks Bic it looks like a ballpoint blue.

Jim: It's just the regular Serenity.

Sarah: Yeah Serenity? Yeah cuz I found that one cuz I bought that was the first ink I bought because that's what was recommended on the pen forums at the time, in like 2008, I moved on from it because it went down pretty but it got way lighter over time and it frustrated me. So that might just be that ink.

Claire: My first ink was Waterman Purple. Well, I bought it probably around 2000, whatever the called the purple now.

Sarah: It's just the purple.

Phil: Waterman Tender Purple.

Sarah: The only ones that are confusing are the blues cuz there's a bunch of them. Everything else there's just one of them, so it's like OK the brown is still the brown.

Phil: Inspired is the turquoise, Serenity is the standard blue, and Mysterious is the blue-black.

Jim: And they used to have different names for those so they used to be like Florida Blue, and Caribbean Blue and something like that?

Sarah: I think it was Caribbean Blue and then it became Florida Blue and now it's whatever it is now. It's confusing. My bottle says Florida Blue.

Yvgenii: You know I'm going to feel dirty for a second. Looking at the swatches that Phil just posted, my favorite of all those browns is Montblanc Toffee Brown.

Phil: Montblanc Toffee Brown is really nice.

Yvgenii: I like the burgundy overtones.

Phil: The one out of that mix the ones that I hate most are the Pelikan Brown and the SBRE Brown because they're too orange and red.

Sarah: That SBRE Brown is just a weird color.

Jim: I'd take Akkerman 22 over it.

Phil: Or I don't have 22 I have 23 I would use that over both of those.

Jim: 23 is really nice. I need to get some of that.

Yvgenii: The 23 looks good but to me that doesn't look brown that looks like bloodstain.

Sarah: No that's Oxblood.

Yvgenii: No Oxblood is fresh blood, that looks like-

Sarah: That's true.

Jim: I have a Goulet page that has the old Waterman names and the new ones so Inspired Blue used to be South Sea Blue, and Serenity Blue used to be Florida Blue. And then the rest are all like standard like Purple became Tender Purple, Green became Harmonious Green...

Sarah: That's like I said all the ones that are confusing are the blues because there's multiple of them.

Jim: The brown used to be Havana Brown and it became Absolut Brown.

Sarah: It wasn't a fancy enough name... I don't know.

Jim: Yeah from what I remember they just changed the names and nothing else about the ink.

Sarah: Yeah they rebranded. It was weird.

Jim: And the bottle print and stuff.

Sarah: The labels yeah they basically rebranded all of it. Even though it happened like in 2011 because the last time I bought Waterman inks was like in 2009 or 2010 I'm still confused because I haven't had to buy it.

Claire: Yeah well the last time I bought Waterman ink was 2000 so.

Sarah: Though people keep posting swatches of the purple and I want to try it.

Phil: So looking at my swabs of Toffee Brown, a couple weeks ago I got Montblanc Sepia via Oscar and Bertram's Inkwell, and I'm pretty sure Sepia is just a renamed Toffee Brown because when you take into account the fact that this ink is 10+ years old probably closer to 20, it's really really similar.

Sandra: There's a bit more red-burgundy in the Sepia than there is in the Toffee Brown.

Phil: I do too. And I'm really tempted just to pass the Sepia out for samples because I'm not sure I'm going to like it.

Yvgenii: Note to self, buy entire bottle of Sepia from Phil.

Phil: No you can't have the bottle. You can the bottle contents but you can't have the bottle.

Yvgenii: Note to self, punch Phil in face until he gives me the bottle.

[laughter]

Phil: No I don't think you understand.

Sandra: I was like I think Yvgenii is the only one that can actually reach Phil's face.

[laughter]

Yvgenii: No I'm six foot nothing.

Phil: Ashley has to stand on a chair to reach my face.

Sandra: I'm only five foot I'm live five four and a half.

Phil: Ashley's about five four too.

Sarah: What I'm gathering is we need to kick Phil's legs out from under him and then steal all his stuff, because Jesi wants the Seed.

Jesi: Yes...

Yvgenii: Jesi wants the Seed. Show title.

[laughter]

Phil: Oh my god.

Yvgenii: Yep I'm writing that down. Oh my god, Jesi wants the Seed.

[laughter]

Jesi: Everybody knows that though.

Yvgenii: Our show titles keep going downhill.

Sarah: Which is awesome.

Yvgenii: As long as it actually makes sense.

[laughter]

Yvgenii: Before we get out of here tonight, I actually want to go ahead and get some questions from the audience.

Sarah: Just scroll up they gave us a lot. Unless you want to do the ones in the show notes?

Yvgenii: No no we'll save those for actual topics. Actually no there is one in the show notes I do actually want to cover but Sarah scroll up and pick a random one really quick from the audience.

Sarah: We need to get like a tag because this is kind of random.

Yvgenii: I know, but that's what's fun about it.

Jim: Anissa asked if any of us has a Hippo Noto, what are you using it for? So I don't have a Hippo.

Claire: Yeah I backed it - I haven't received it yet.

Sarah: I have mine because I backed the cream, but it's just like in theory I knew it was a brick, but when I got it I was like holy shit, so I've just been hesitant to touch it, because I'm like this feels like I need to put something special in it.

Yvgenii: Um my Hippo is not quite here yet, but after everyone kept talking about it I'm finally going to up my paper game. Yep, I'm upgrading from Rhodia.

Phil: To?

Yvgenii: Whatever's in the Hippo.

Claire: Tomoe River.

Phil: That's 68?

Sarah: Yeah it's the thicker Tomoe.

Yvgenii: I'm dreaming about it now. Real paper...

Jim: You haven't used Tomoe River?

Yvgenii: I've never used it!

Sandra: I'm waiting for my ivory I have seen my pen club every week every month that we have pen club someone brings in their Hippo so I keep looking at them going I'm just I'm just waiting and then they pass them around for everyone to touch them and feel them, and I'm like I want mine I want it but I'm so glad that you know she's waiting so that it's all nice and perfect for us.

Claire: Not I didn't like purposefully collect them but I mean looking at my pen cup I have more ballpoints and rollerballs and gel inks than I care to admit.

Sarah: I know I stole my dad's pens because he had a stash of Pilot V5s, and he had to stop me from stealing them, and by that time I figured out that fountain pens existed, so I then had to convince my mom to let me use her credit card, because I was 16, to order a fountain pen off the website. I paid her back but it was still like she was like, why do you want to buy I don't understand. That that was fun.

Jim: I have a few but I wouldn't say I collect them either. Maybe Retros I have like six of those now.

Claire: Yeah I mean I was given my first fountain pen when I was 13, 12, 13 somewhere in that range it was never a I never got into ballpoints all that much.

Yvgenii: I got into Pilot G3s to fountain pens.

Phil: You mean G2s?

Sarah: I thought G3s were also a thing.

Yvgenii: Yeah G3s are a thing.

Phil: They are?

Yvgenii: Yeah.

Phil: This is literally the first time I've ever heard of them.

Yvgenii: Uh the G3 is the generic black ballpoint that you can get from like Walmart. It's legitimately a thing, it's kindof weird.

Sarah: But we all knew Pilot does weird things when it comes to American versus everywhere else distribution so it's fine.

Yvgenii: Yeah. I mean it was a good pen.

Phil: Oh it's not a clicky pen. It's a G2 in a stick pen.

Yvgenii: Exactly.

Jim: I was going to ask is there a G3 pen anyway?

Yvgenii: I know because it was the only generic pen my parents would buy that I actually liked. So you kind of you kind of grow close to the pen if it's the only one that makes your writing not look crappy.

Sarah: That's how I felt about the Pilot Precise V5.

Yvgenii: And then it's like listen to the Pen Addict, wait what is this thing called Kaweco? At the time they were calling it Ka-wee-co, so what is this thing called Kaweco? And then it was like Jetpens, then enabling, then Slack, and now I have no life.

Sarah: This sounds pretty standard, honestly.

Jim: I was like digging through the stationery stuff I left behind here in Beirut and all of my like older ink samples are here, and I found this giant pile of like Bic Crystals that I had like earlier in the Pen Addict Slack, people were talking about how like the default Bic is like a piece of crap but like I always remember the Bic Crystal is pretty good it's not the most comfortable or the best writing pen, but it works really well.

Sarah: I remember hearing something about how the international Bic is different from the American Bic.

Jim: I can see that.

Phil: That wouldn't surprise me.

Sarah: Yeah and so like international Bic Crystal is actually really good apparently?

Jim: Maybe I'll get some with me and I can mail some of you guys some of them.

Sarah: And we can compare them for you.

Yvgenii: Honestly you know, since you said all of your ink samples are over there in Beirut with you, what I want to see is you trying to get through Customs with a whole bunch of ink samples.

[laughter]

Sarah: Didn't you already do that?

Jim: You do realize that when I moved from like Beirut to like New York I had most of my ink bottles in like my checked bags. All wrapped up in like little baggies with the what do you call it the air bubble wrap and whatever. I didn't get in any trouble. Actually the only one that did get in trouble somewhat was Leonardo Red Chalk which I had in a different bag, along with my PC, so someone opened that up and spilled some of it. Otherwise no not really, never had any issues.

Sandra: Now Jim when you moved from Beirut, with all of your stuff in your luggage, did the TSA or any of the airport people open up your bags and look at them and leave that silly little piece of paper that says your bag was inspected.

Jim: No they didn't leave any paper but like uh I could see on like so I had three bags with me and the one that had like my desktop PC in it and a few other things, that was definitely opened up cuz uh things were shuffled around and the front panel on my desktop case was like not smashed not broken but it didn't like fit on properly anymore so I actually replaced my desktop case like a week ago.

Sarah: Wow.

Jim: I mean considering that was the only real damage I got I wasn't to.

Sandra: Because every time when I travel and I come back bringing back souvenirs instead of bringing back little cheesy like keychains and things like that I just bring back alcohol, cuz I figure I can just throw a party have all my friends get drunk at my house and we can relive my vacation time and my luggage always gets searched, and I think it's because of all the liquids in there and I think they're like why does she have five bottles of something in her suitcase? So I was wondering if they opened yours up with all of the ink bottles of ink in it or not.

Phil: I have a friend that came back from South America, and he filled his suitcase with like two or three cases of liquor, and he got through fine.

Sarah: They basically apparently don't really care.

Jim: I haven't been randomly checked in a long time so.

Yvgenii: That being said though now that we know Jim's going to bring us back a whole bunch of the good stuff, I actually wanted to go ahead and finish off the questions for the week with a good one from Sandra. Pretty much with all the secret santa stuff going on, Reddit, Facebook, Slack, Discord, what are some of the things that you're either hoping to get, from like Secret Santas, significant others, or what are you planning on getting being the devious little people that you are for other people.

Sarah: Um so I um asked for a couple different stationery things. Well I gave my mom my JetPens wishlist, but specifically I pointed out to her that I wanted I know a mentioned a couple episodes that I'm experimenting with erasers, so I have the JetPens eraser sampler pack, um I want a pack of blue/red pencils, and um I really love the Blackwing 16.2s, the stormtrooper ones that just came out, so I put those on my list. She did text me wait did you mean the subscription or buy the pack of pencils? Cuz she was confused about the link I sent her so I think I'm getting those. But other than that um, my dad's really into mechanical pencils and I gave him some a Rotring 600 and a pack of Field Notes for Father's Day, but I don't know if he's actually using them so I need to when I'm for Christmas I need to you know ninja around and sneaky investigate to see if he is actually using it or not, and if so then I will buy him stuff in the future, but that's my only stationery thing, other than the Pen Addict secret santa.

Yvgenii: You know speaking of Secret Santa, if anyone wants to secret santa me a whole bunch of pen company stickers to put on the bottom of my TV that would be awesome. I'm just putting that out there right now.

Jim: I'll dig through my stickers when I get back because I have some.

Yvgenii: Oooo. Nice.

Phil: You mean like one of... hold on.

Jim: I can send you a Pen Addict sticker and a few other things.

Yvgenii: Oh the Pen Addict one would be great.

Sandra: Did you did you order the Ice-o-metric pen?

Yvgenii: I did not. Michael was nice enough to make that magically appear in the same envelope as the BYOB Pen Club sticker.

Sarah: Yeah he just shoved all sorts of stickers in that envelope I got a bunch I got Ice-o-metric stickers too and a creamsicle sticker?

Yvgenii: Mmhm.

Jim: Hey he also sent like the Explore Mars stickers.

Sandra: Yeah cuz I have the Ice-o-metric sticker sitting in front of me right now.

Phil: You know if I had mailing address I could probably send it out to you.

Yvgenii: I thought we posted those in the Green Room a while back.

Sarah: You need to pay attention.

Jim: We can just pin it I guess like put it.

Sandra: The guinea pig sticker is...

[collective squeeing]

Jim: I love the guinea pig sticker it's awesome.

Yvgenii: Oh my god that it is so cute!

Sarah: Where did you get that?

Yvgenii: OK those words should not have come out of my mouth.

Jesi: And yet it did and we have it recorded.

Phil: Yeah but the sound guy recorded it and he's gonna delete it and

Yvgenii: I mean the only thing I cut out is when we talk over each other being jerks, but other than that...

Phil: We never do that.

Yvgenii: We do it all the time.

Phil: No we don't.

Yvgenii: We've done it like fifty times this episode alone.

Sarah: I'm bad at interrupting people.

[everyone talking at once]

Sandra: No you never do that.

Yvgenii: OK quit doing it to prove a point. That's it, no santa gifts for any of you.

[laughter]

Sarah: But I still get that guinea pig fountain pen sticker right?

Phil: Uh that depends.

Jesi: On what?

Phil: I don't know.

Yvgenii: Oh wow I love what Kara's does with their stickers.

Claire: Yeah I've got two of theirs on my water bottle.

Yvgenii: The only thing I have an issue with with Kara's Kustoms, my ex-wife's name was Kara!

Jim: Ah.

Claire: Oh.

Jim: Yeah.

Phil: Well if you get the new Decograph, that's the only one of their pens with any kind of logo on them.

Jesi: Not super fat, just broad. So I them as um I have a broad stub, and that's the broadest they get.

Phil: OK.

Yvgenii: Hm... broad stub...

Phil: No I already took it.

Yvgenii: It's Jesi we're talking about she'll be able to find how many more?

Phil: I don't know but I get first pick.

Jesi: OK.

Sarah: You know can screw the nibs in and out of Esterbrooks right? That's kind of the point?

Phil: Yeah but if she only has one I get it first.

Sarah: I thought she just said she had multiple?

Phil: It doesn't matter.

Jesi: I'll make sure you get what you need Phil, OK?

Phil: I I have not idea what I need.

Jesi: Um, you need to send the purple Seed.

[laughter]

Jesi: That's all we need to know.

Yvgenii: See Jim's doggo is being a good doggo. My doggos are being obnoxious.

Sarah: Granted it's like, almost four in the morning over there so, the dog is asleep.

Jim: It it's quarter to five yeah.

Yvgenii: OK my doggo's not being that annoying well my old doggo.

Jim: Aw she's being a good girl too.

Yvgenii: Yeah and she better on that carpet I got that carpet in Turkey.

Jesi: Is that the hand-made persian rug?

Yvgenii: Yeah they made it in front of us. It took them about... four days?

Sarah: Oh wow.

Jim: Nice.

Jesi: You sat there for four days?

Yvgenii: No they were right outside the air force base.

Sarah: OK.

Yvgenii: Yeah. But we sat there and it's like OK, it's a it's a good size it's like 9ft by 15ft, and that's actually the original color I've been very careful with that carpet.

Jim: Yeah those dyes can actually bleed over so like, we had some minor flooding damage in our like mountain house happen in November, so I had to like help Mom get the rugs repaired so we picked them up and yeah they can like the colors definitely like bleed and seep into each other. Especially like the reds, the reds are like prone for that.

Phil: Already so Sarah's picture, the three ink colors.

Sarah: Well yeah that was MountainofInk that posted in the Slack.

Phil: Whatever you just posted the picture here.

Sarah: Yes I did them a service because they couldn't figure it out.

Phil: That I did not realize that Lamy Dark Lilac was that much darker than the other two, but the other two I think I'd kind of go with the Cross of The Beatles and especially go with the Cross at that price point.

Jim: I've heard that uh some of the Montblanc inks not all of them it's made in Austria it's made by that other company Seitz Kreuznach that we see sometimes. They have like those fancy bottles that look like alcoholic drinks.

Sarah: We told him he didn't have to come on from Lebanon, but he was like NO I'm determined.

Phil: I have to.

Jim: I mean I'm off this week so, that's why I'm doing it. Oh they don't have the older like cool bottles.

Phil: The flask style bottles?

Jim: Yeah they used to have like flask bottle styles and now they're using those like German bottles the Pelikan/Kaweco bottles.

Phil: There were two sizes of the, I'm not even gonna try either cuz I know I'm gonna fuck it all up, um there was a 30mL which was like the Kaweco bottle, and then there was the much bigger flask style bottle.

Yvgenii: Put the name in chat really quick so I can try butchering it.

Phil: Um Alex posted it a bit ago.

Jim: Here, Seitz Kreuznach.

Phil: It used to be on Amazon. They aren't carrying it any more.

Yvgenii: I think Seitz Kreuznach is actually closer pronunciation it just depends on the country of origin.

Jim: Look at the flagon.

Sarah: You would definitely have drunk people trying to drink that ink because it looks too similar to an actual like flask.

Phil: Flask bottle I would be up to just have to [?].

Yvgenii: Uh so it's only $15 and OK I'm getting some.

Phil: The uh arctic blue is really, really nice.

Yvgenii: Topics for next show, inks that look like you should drink them but no you shouldn't.

Phil: You know actually at our Christmas party yesterday, one of the guys had a, it was called a blue hawaiian I have no idea what it was, but it looked like snow cone as an alcoholic drink.

Yvgenii: Probably just blue curacao.

Sarah: Just add blue curacao to anything and it looks like you shouldn't drink it.

Yvgenii: What is a blue hawaiian, like blue curacao, tequila, and some other stuff?

Sarah: I don't know. One of the bars around here has something called a blue motherfucker, and it's basically a long island iced tea with blue curacao.

Phil: So if you could put that as the arctic blue, that's pretty much what it is what it looks like in the flask bottle.

Jim: OK, it's curacao by the way.

Yvgenii: Yeah curacao I know. Go ahead hold me accountable. You know I also butchered the name of.

Jim: OK so turkish people say it more like curacao. It's still like curacao.

Yvgenii: And then you get into all the weird pronunciation stuff. But you know what I think we should do, I think we should go ahead and close it up so we can we can open it up to everyone else to actually BS with us the rest of the night, what do you guys things?

[laughter]

Yvgenii: Thanks to everyone who joined us live tonight in the Discord. If you want to support what we do, head over to patreon.com/byobpenclub, and cast your vote either Team Cake or Team Pie. Don't forget to listen, like, comment, subscribe, and share on your podcast player of choice and follow us on twitter @BYOBpenclub. And don't forget to also use #askBYOB for any random questions you think about throughout the week, before you get to bombard us with them on the chat. Until next time, say goodbye everybody!